Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Save them...please."

She didn't sleep because of those words. They echoed in her head every time she locked eyes with anything.

The first time she heard them was, surprisingly, when she locked eyes with Io.

"Save them." That voice began, but then it followed with "This is your Attendant. She is your 'other half'." Then her eyes closed and she rested in Io's lap, before being forcefully indentured as a thrall and thrown underground.

The second time was when she locked eyes with Oliver. 

"Save them." The voice again. It was soft, feminine, and when it spoke she could feel hands that weren't there wrapping around her neck. Fingers stroking her cheek gently, a brush of air that wasn't possible to exist beneath the surface ghosting her nape. "He is doomed to be Lost forever. Harden your heart."

It wasn't until Oliver swung his sledgehammer and narrowly missed mashing her into a pulp that it sunk into her head just 'what' a Lost was.

She couldn't save him. She couldn't help the kind boy that only sought to alleviate her fears for Io's safety. 

There was a feeling deep in her chest, a clenching that couldn't be compared to anything else, and her soul felt shattered when the kind lad who couldn't have been any older than fourteen roared with the last vestiges of humanity he had left.

It was anguished.

"You can't save him." The voice attempted to soothe her, but it wasn't working. Did all Revenants have this inner voice? "I'm sorry, but you can't help him."

She tried anyway. She failed.

Louis was the one to end his suffering. 

The most memorable time she'd heard the voice was when she locked eyes with Mia. Desperate, on edge, thirsty and worried, Mia's eyes said everything the voice didn't.

'I have no one but him' They said. 'I am a child that grew too fast.' 

The voice supplemented her thoughts with a venom unheard of before. "A child Revenant." It was harsh with the tone, but the disgust was simply a mirror of what she herself was feeling. "Despicable that He would go to such lengths."

Who He was wasn't relevant right now. The small child with a bayonet pointed at Yakumo mattered more.

"Hello." Louis startled, an odd look crossing his face when he realised that his was his first time hearing her speak. She didn't care. This was for the child, not him. "Are you looking for someone?"

The child's eyes locked onto her, but the bayonet was lowered slightly. Confusion danced behind her green-turned-red eyes and the girl returned her question with another. 

"Didn't you hear me? Hand over your blood beads!"

She ignored Yakumo reaching for his pocket containing the pistol she'd seen earlier, and instead fired back with what would eventually be the start of a friendship too good for words.

"Why don't you let me help you?"

Mia's eyes widened before they watered and she fled.

A glance back before she vanished from their sight wouldn't be the last time she and Mia locked eyes.

Chapter Text

There was a soul in her hands. Whether it was hers or not didn’t matter; it was a soul. And it was beautiful. It whispered to her words of love, breathy and ethereal but lovely to hear all the same. It told her its desires, its secrets, it took her hands and kissed her knuckles, it brushed her cheeks and pecked her lips. It felt familiar.

It looked red, but souls weren’t supposed to be red, were they? It must have been crying before it left its body, then, because why else would it be shaped like a teardrop? It was still beautiful, though, and something told her, something evil and vile, to drink deep. Drink away that beauty, suckle until it was empty.

She wouldn’t do that. She fought the urges as much as possible, as hard as she could. She gripped her Operation: Queenslayer blade with white knuckles, still staring at the red soul drop in her hands. Even as she walked through the winding caverns that she had been thrown into, even as mindless Lost charged her and screamed with a noise that hurt her head, she didn’t care.

They would not destroy this soul drop in her hands. She would not become Lost, either; she will fight this thirst that ebbed and flowed within her, the nasty vile thing that urged her to eat this beauty in her hands.

She kept walking, kept killing, ignored the friendly Revenant, kept walking, healed a bloodspring, kept walking, kept killing.

Then there stood Oliver.

And that soul whispered in her ear, a hand glided across her hands, a brush of air against her neck, a forehead against her shoulder.

“Save them.” It sobbed.

Tears leaked down her cheeks, dropping from her angled chin, staining the bottom of her eyes with whatever makeup she’d decided to wear that day. Palms rubbed her nose, her cheeks, her lips, ran over closing eyelids and brushed a strand of ashen hair from her slick forehead.

Her own hands reached out to touch someone that wasn’t there, to feel something she couldn’t feel. Her chest hurt even more than she thought it could.

“Save them.” The voice sobbed, and she joined it.

She killed Oliver. She couldn’t save him. She failed her mission before she got a chance to begin.

When Louis wasn’t looking when he brought her to the church, she drank that soul. It sobbed for her, feared for her. It didn’t fear her, though.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, and a hand brushed through her hair, lips pressed against hers, but they didn’t at the same time.

“I am too.”

The voice was gone.

She cried some more, feeling more alone than she thought anyone could ever feel.

There’s never been enough time for her to just sit down. Relax, take in the sights of the Gaol, or the clouds above tinted in red, or the skies when they weep.

She wishes to copy them. She wants to curl up and weep tears that she hoped would never stop flowing, she wishes to cry and scream and throw things, for her anger to subside and her hatred to vanish under soul-crushing sadness. She wants to lie there, end her self-inflicted mission and let the world walk all over her. She wants to tell her ‘Attendant’ that she’s no longer needed, tell her to be free, find love, start a family. She wants to tell her to leave her to die, to rot like the wretch she is, to writhe on the ground as everyone around her leaves her for some reason or another.

But she couldn’t. not yet.

Turning her head to her left, her silver hair brushing her cheek slightly – like she used to do, before all of this – Cassie let her eyes roam around the church. Sure enough, there stood Coco, leaning against a meticulously cleaned car of unknown origin – unknown to her, anyway. She was currently talking to Louis, and Cassie had to drown the hatred as it rose just looking at him. He had imposed this stupid mission on her like it was her duty; a Void Blood Code, allowing the ability to suffuse and ‘borrow’ others’ Blood Codes, and suddenly it’s her job to ensure his stupid mission is to ride on her ability? She’d rather not, rather let the Blood Beads die out, rather let the world wither and die, let the humans rule.

Revenants should not have been created anyway. But she can’t, because The Queen once told her knight a story of salvation. And her knight, her stupid, love stricken, idiotic, bleeding heart of a knight, just wanted to show her Queen that salvation wasn’t a dream anymore. It could be done.

So, she drowned that stupid hatred for the one person she refused to talk to, whether her life be on the line or not. Let his mission end, while he rides her coattails and steals her victory. Just let it all end, already.

Her head drifted right, and she spotted Murasame talking to herself about stocking up and maintenance of the other Revenants’ weapons. It was still a mystery to her why a clearly combat-ready Revenant such as Murasame refused active combat, but Cassie would find out eventually. She always did.

Sat at the bar was Yakumo, a cup of what she could only guess was Sake in his left hand, the right lay across the surface and he slumped against the wood. There was no bartender, but Cassie has thought about taking up that job here, while she’s not out killi-saving the Lost.

Just past Yakumo was that Cerberus guy, Davis. In truth, she only entertained him occasionally because he could take her to the Depths, and even then, he was ignored afterwards; she trusted him as much as she trusted Louis.

She didn’t trust him at all.

No, she couldn’t roll down and die, let the world enact vengeance for all those she’s taken from it. She couldn’t just sit there until bloodthirst got to her and she crumbled into ashes. She couldn’t become Lost and wander, no longer caring about anything. She couldn’t, because she had to be the strong one for these kids. Even Coco, who looked twice her age, was barely half of it. She was, after all, their elder.

“Hey Cassie, when we’re grown up, I’ll be a real queen!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! And then you’ll be my knight and you can save me and we can-”

No, she couldn’t let the world have its way, because she needed to keep these kids alive, safe, happy. They were her redemption, after all.

“You are thinking again.” Io, her lovely Attendant, shuffled up next to her. Cassie continued watching the crew that Louis has somehow pulled together from every corner of life, every walk, every path. She was slipping back into introspection again. “They are not nice thoughts, are they?”

Cassie left her head alone, left the thoughts. “No.” This quietly and this far away from everyone else she could talk. She could talk to Io, she couldn’t talk to everyone else – she remembers distantly a memory of someone calling her voice ragged, creepy. She wouldn’t let them hear it, then. She wouldn’t want to ruin their moods, their thoughts of her.

Io, however, didn’t seem bothered by her. She was designed to stick by her until the end, after all. Io was her Attendant. “Are they ever nice thoughts, Successor?”

“No.”

It was silent, but that was fine to Cassie.

“Are you going to help them search for the source, Successor?”

“Yes.”

Io had a funny look on her face, but it wasn’t Cassie’s place. She’d find out eventually; she always did.

“I see.” Io seemed to slump in on herself somewhat, hands clutching her threadbare cloak as she walked off to her bed, surrounded by candles. “I wish you the best, Successor.”

Cassie waited until she was out of earshot before she sighed, her straight back and stiff posture slumping slightly.

“I don’t.”

There’s a time and a place for one to fall to their knees in exhaustion.

After a long day of exercise, finally burning your fat away and letting muscles break through like some sort of sinuous caterpillar. Or, perhaps, after a long day of mental work – writing up letters and filing away information, of which would grant mental exhaustion. A different beast than physical exhaustion, to be sure, but nevertheless a beast hard to tackle unless one is at their peak.

Then came emotional exhaustion. But now wasn’t the time to slump down in defeat and cry, now wasn’t the time to hate herself more than ever before.

There was human blood on the floor; a small pool, a puddle no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper. But it was human, and unbidden came the thought that another had died. Then that foolish Revenant came bargaining through, posturing like an animal in a kingdom of predators, as though this human was property. As though he owned it, owned the blood that flowed through its veins. Owned its life, his to hold. Cassie tried very, very hard not to ram her Queenslayer Blade through his fucking gullet and rip out his spine, making sure he could Regenerate just to do it again and again and again until she shoved a fist through his chest and wAtChEd HiM TuRn To AsH.

Like back then, back when she was The Queenslayer, back when she succeeded where others failed. Her skill didn’t come from friendship, or romance, or happiness. It came from death and war, destruction and an overbearing need to protect something. Nothing else, not even herself, mattered during those days.

But she couldn’t go back to that, back to the her that isn’t her now. No, there was a time and a place for collapsing from emotional exhaustion, and as her thoughts were suppressed and she hurried to the Central Park area that the human was running to, autopilot became the main driver, while she just directed it.

She could think later, alone, when her veins didn’t beg for death and a genocide that would destroy all within the Gaol. When her thoughts didn’t contradict her Queen’s last words.

“Save them.” That voice sobbed into her ear, whispered yet louder than anything she’s ever heard before. It wasn’t an order, it was a request, but there was nothing she could do to deny it.

She will.

She has to. She has to because the alternative is much to scary to think about.

“I…think I like that.”

“Yeah! And then we can get married and rule the kingdom together! And then you can be like ‘oh no the world’s gonna end’ and I’ll be like ‘oh no! my brave knight must save it!’ and you’ll go ‘yeah! Off I go!’ and then-”

For that stupid little dream. A thought so idle it could have only spawned from childrens’ heads. A dream so grandiose it could only come from those that had not seen the world for what it was yet; in ruins or not.  But it was her dream, it was hers, theirs, and she’d be damned before it faded away into nothing.

She has to save them all. Must, there is no other way. Self-sacrifice is key, after all, to a hero’s end.

Without delay she sprinted into the Butterfly’s cocoon, poison washing over her and death itself filling her bones. Ash tasted in her mouth but she swallowed it instead of spitting it out, blood, coagulated and almost dry, chasing it down afterwards. Her Ichor was high, Regeneration full, and her heart hurting more than it ever has before.

She was nothing if not a self-sacrificial hero.

Anything for her.

Chapter Text

There’s a hole in her chest, sometimes; it isn’t always there. It doesn’t have the courtesy to give an advanced warning before it shows up, either, or sometimes it just shows up without any reason to. That hole, it likes to grow and shrink periodically, it likes to jog her memories and feed off of her anguish, it likes to make her think and feel, and throws stupid promises she made as a child at her head on. It likes to make her remember just how bad a human being she was before she became a Revenant, and sometimes it likes to remind her how bad of a Revenant she is.

Crimson, slick and wet, dripped from her palms and sunk to the floor. The noise a metronome that was only interrupted now and again by ragged breaths. Her knuckles were white, her eyes dilated beads of red, her arms shaking, and somehow, she mustered the courage to look at what she’d just done.

Lifeless blue eyes stared back at her.

A screech expelled her from her memories, and she was almost struck in the side by the poisonous butterfly-human thing careening towards her. Had she not shaken herself from that memory, she would have been flattened against the wall, bleeding severely and tumbling around in a half-daze as Yakumo was now. Louis, for all his bluster, was doing nothing but making sure it didn’t target him as he guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacked it. The butterfly paid him no mind, because why would it? He was a gnat, chipping away at a creature that could have lay there for hours and nothing would have happened. No, instead it targeted her, because why wouldn’t it?

She hit harder than Louis did, her time from Operation Queenslayer giving her techniques and training to use; admittedly those memories were long faded, and she was quite sure she was misremembering things in an attempt to fill in the gaps. But that didn’t matter; what did matter to Cassie, right now, was dodging to the left to avoid what otherwise would have been a clean decapitation. Now that the creature was left open, she examined her position, and an educated guess was formed – swing for the back while its protruding limbs are shot forward. She did, of course, follow through on this rather educated guess.

When you fight The Queen herself and kill your way through thousands of Lost to get to her, you learn a thing or two. Such as, for example, backing away after landing a successful hit on her enemy; something she knew to do all too well after that fiasco with…there was a knight…someone named Jack?

She shook her head; right now, memories had no place in her head, only concepts for destruction, annihilation, death-dealing and more. No thinking, only instinct and intellect to guide her here.

“Yaaah!” she turned her head to witness Yakumo activating a skill form his Code; what else could he be doing? Dyeing his blade red? His arms seemed to ripple as he swung, and his hands gripped the hilt of his greatsword so hard his knuckles looked like they were splitting open, held together by strained skin. His eyes glowed an odd shade of red, almost projecting the colour onto the enemy he looked at – but it was slightly unnerving to look at, and if he could control whether the colour showed up or not that might actually be the idea.

Regardless of how terrifying he looked – or childish, if you asked her – the results of the Gift he’d activated spoke for themselves. His movement speed all but slowed to a crawl, but his arms, with weapon in iron-fisted grip, swung in a flash, and before she even blinked the Butterfly’s entire upper torso was spirited from its now writhing, lower one. Both halves fell to the ground with a dull thump that she ignored in favour of looking at the now-exhausted Yakumo.

If that was ever turned on her…Cassie knew she wasn’t at full strength – at full strength she took on the Queen with little issue, something inside her told her that if she were to do that now, she’d be swatted away before she even knew what was going on. She hadn’t ‘died’ yet, but if she continued to stagnate while the Revenants around her grew, she’d be at the bottom of the food chain again.

That didn’t sit well with her, but how was she supposed to change her current course? She trained day and night whenever she wasn’t staring at the Gaol or serving drinks at the bar. Of course, Cassie knew she did herself no favours when she refused to use Gifts from other Blood Codes, but it was a case of pride.

Cassie was her knight. She got by on skill, strength, speed and natural reflexes to slay the Queen back then. She did not need others’ ability’s or strength back then. Natural talent, self-taught skill and instinct honed to a sharpened edge.

“You have stormed the keep, you have saved the princess, you are done now.”

That was her.

A hand ghosted over hers, a whisper in her ear. “You can put the sword down, my knight.”

Was.

Arms reached around her neck, a forehead resting at her nape. “you’ve won the battle, slain the dragon; rest.”

And wasn’t that thought depressing?

There was a sigh, a breath of air that brushed the tears that started to dribble down her cheeks. “If you won’t rest, then save them. Save them all.”

No, she knew she needed to branch out; her own skill just couldn’t cut it anymore. With the amount of death’s and memories she’s lost, Cassie doubts she’d ever get back her old skill. No, she needed to – as much as she may hate it – borrow the abilities of others. At least until she got herself back up to standard.

If that standard for her was ‘Queenslayer or nothing’.

The voice was sobbing, tears not her own staining the front of her Queenslayer garb. “save them all, my knight. Save them all.”

She watched, with almost silent dispassion as Louis talked to the human girl they’d rescued from the creature Yakumo and she had just slain. Louis did nothing of note, other than get knocked around a bit and leave some shallow cuts – he needed to revise his fighting style whenever he fought against a large, singular enemy instead of smaller, weaker ones.

Her eyes, jaded crimson and lifeless, locked with the human girl’s oceans of blue trepidation, fear, and a hidden happiness to be free from her previous chains.

Her name is Lucy, and she aspired to be a dancer before she was kidnapped and dragged off to be used as a living blood-bag. Yet, despite being drained almost completely dry over and over against her will, she survived, and made it her business to never fall into the despair she so easily could have. She will most likely seek out a shelter, and be asked to draw blood constantly, but she will be fed and safe for the time being.

Well that just wouldn’t do, now would it? Humans were their betters, not their cattle; she’d show the first human she’s seen in ages the proper respect she deserved.

Louis was prattling on to her about how not all Revenant are bad, not all of them are evil, not all desire the blood of humans to keep going – some want change, some want freedom, and some seek self-destruction. Some dance, and some sing, and some like riding cars, and some like reading books, and some like video games, and some like eating human food, and some like drinking alcohol. He was impressing upon her the humanity that Revenant had, deep down…when they weren’t bloodthirsty leeches seeking to drain the human population dry, that is.

He stopped talking, though, when Cassie reached the human girl – Lucy was her name, yet she doubted Louis even bothered to ask. The girl’s eyes locked with her again.

“Uh…he-hello?” Cassie noted the girl seemed to shrink in on herself, the gun in her hands pointing towards Cassie’s chest where her heart was, her eyes wide and slightly unhinged.

She didn’t respond, instead she gave a pointed look to both Louis and Yakumo to leave the area while she ‘dealt’ with the human. Yakumo nodded immediately – he was smarter than she gave him credit for, it would seem, and as Yakumo left, Louis turned around and followed after him, if only hesitating for a moment.

But the good thing was that they were gone, and here she was, alone with the human.

Lucy, despite being captive not a few moments ago, has a strong will and a stronger desire for freedom; she will not follow, but she hasn’t the qualities to lead. She will, however, work.

Cassie extended a hand to the girl, and for the first time all day to someone that wasn’t Io, she spoke.

“Save them all.”

“I have a proposition for you.”

Chapter Text

Sometimes the world smiles at you with bared fangs and sharpened claws; a dour sight with depressing meaning. It grins a grin of teeth and flashes a smile of knives – all sharpened, all bared outwardly. Gnarled and twisted, with widened eyes and slightly-too-wide mouths, Cheshire in nature but without the playfulness expected from such a maddened look.

A soft smile, grim and understanding; the worst kind, for it lets monsters become so to slay other man-made monsters – blood dribbled from the lips, glowing eyes resigned. A palm was placed to her cheek, brushing the tears that streaked them, wiping away trails before they even began their treks.

People could smile like that too. They could convey so many emotions with just a look that it sometimes scared Cassie – or it would, were she not made of sterner stuff than simple steel. People had this tendency to throw up walls and pretend to be something they weren’t; even if for posterity, or perhaps a virtue of trying to maintain a façade built through years of construction. Some even do this to conceal another mask they’d made a while back that blended so perfectly with their true personality that it becomes hard to see who you are and who the mask is.

She finds such thoughts funny, because to her she is her mask; she shines, radiant, glorious, triumphant above all and glowing with a strength that cannot be understated as anything less than unadulterated power. She can stand above all, hands outstretched with fire and lightning fizzling between her fingertips, sometimes with a thick red coagulation running along her palms, with frost coating her knuckles. She’d pose proud, yet also humble of the power she trained to have, and unlike so many others that had power comparable to hers she wasn’t given it – she earned it. It does well to remind herself that little titbit before she flaunts it about.

“A dizzying rise begets a staggering fall. You told me that once.” A pause, a hand brushing through hair to sweep a bang away from her eyes. “Do you remember? It was when - ”

Or, well, she would…had she her power.

It’s frustrating, she thinks, to find herself falling into a slumber comparable to an old fable of a sleeping princess – and isn’t that ironic in and of itself – only to find herself awakening changed. Somehow different than she remembers being. Small, incremental changes that she could overlook simply because it didn’t matter that much – her hair length, for example, seemed to have gone from that short neck-length bob cut to a longer, waist-length, unruly mess. The general shape of the bob was there, but it was…barely recognisable beneath the layers of dirt, blood – not all of it hers – and grime. And only now did Cassie realise how badly she needed to bathe.

‘Hmm, bath now or later?’ Her thoughts on the topic were usually vehement; bathing should take no longer than essential to clean oneself, and then she’d get back to her mission – probably why she found herself dirtied more and more, to be honest. While debating it, she turned her gaze from the glass she was cleaning to the human girl she’d brought here.

Of course, the girl was less-than-satisfied with the surroundings – dilapidated churches tended to look shabby in overcast weathers – but there was a grateful smile she shot Cassie as she set up in her room; now Cassie’s old room. It wasn’t like it got much use beyond token efforts at sleep anyway. At least it would be put to more use.

The girl, after cleaning out Cassie’s room to make it her own, was currently helping Murasame with stocking and general shop-keeping. It was admirable; after all, when you’re offered a job as an assistant in exchange for not being a Revenant’s bloodbag, it becomes clear you’d do your best to fulfill your new role.

“Head full of space again?”

Shaken out of her thoughts by Yakumo’s voice, Cassie nodded; a simple gesture that spoke of the ‘yes’ he expected to hear. He was quite observant, after all, when you let him be. She continued cleaning the glass until it became spotless, and once satisfied with the job she placed it back on the shelf behind her.

She’d taken the idea to become a bartender for the church and made it a reality – she needed something to do that wasn’t sitting on her backside between excursions out into Vein. She needed distraction, something to fill the time with, and she’d found her calling here serving drinks. It wasn’t as if it was difficult, either – they paid her in Haze, she poured them one of four available drinks; those are, of course, Sake, Wine, Whiskey, and sometimes brandy. The brandy was aged, though, and therefore infinitely more valuable to everyone as an incentive to complete their ‘chase’ for the source of blood beads, than just something to drink after a good excursion out into Vein.

Regardless, Yakumo was here, and making an effort to talk to her – she’d not exactly been the picture of approachability, so this should be good. Or at least she hoped it would be.

She stared at him for a full ten seconds before he caught on. “Oh!” He did that odd tick of his whenever he was nervous – rubbed the back of his neck, a small grin that she assumed was self-deprecation gracing his otherwise stern face. “Well…I know you don’t exactly come off as…approachable…but, well…”

She made a rolling motion with her wrist, a ‘get on with it’ gesture that was universally acknowledged. He caught on, because he took a deep breath and centred himself. Look, you’re our unofficial ‘squad’ leader, right? You act as a leader when we’re out there, and as much as Louis might not like that, he knows you’re just better suited to combat than he is.”

She quirked an eyebrow.

“You’re the brainy brawn, and he’s just brainy brains, with a little bit of brawn mixed in. and I’m just all brawn, so stuff goes over my head sometimes.”

…an odd analogy but she’d heard weirder.

“Look, the point I’m making is…look; I get the world sucks and you’ve probably been through quite a lot, but you need to socialise.” He was getting frustrated with his lack of ability to translate his well thought out…thoughts…into words. She could get that.

Louis was on the other side of the church, talking to Coco as usual, while she kept trying to steer the conversation from ‘polite’ to ‘buy my stuff’, Murasame was fixing up Cassie’s sword – it chipped during her fight with the Poisonous Butterfly, and that just wouldn’t do – and Davis was…being Davis. A glance to the left confirmed that Io was asleep, but she had this nagging thought that all she needed to do was approach and Io would spring up with new life. She’ll let her sleep.

She was told her voice was rough to the ears, that it could scare children were she so inclined to try. She wasn’t, but the point stood.

“I will try.”

He looked shocked, yet when the scratchy words dug into his brain and he finally heard what she said, he grinned.  “Good, good! Can’t have our ‘team leader’ all down and quiet forever, can we?”

She cracked the barest of smiles and poured him some Sake; with some deliberation, she poured some for herself too.

After a sip and a thankful sigh, Yakumo looked at Cassie with eyes sharper than she saw from him earlier; with hints of eagerness. “So, where are we going next?”

"Adventure can lead to something great, can't it?" The head rested beneath her chin, a hand tangled with hers while the other played with her hip; outlines of nameless figures drawn onto her flesh with imaginary ink. She fought the urge to shiver, and sighed instead.

"Sometimes, but you'll never know unless you try." A sheet covered their modesty from the outside world, but it felt colder than she thought it would.

A sob racked itself against her chest, and her other hand encased the girl now crying.

"I'm scared."

A frown, creased with worry lines and more natural on her face than it should be. "Of what?"

"Of-"

…why not? “In the city I spotted a sinkhole with some ladders leading down…”

Chapter Text

“The world is so dark…what she sees in people I’ll never know.”

“You befit your cynicism, but I’m quite sure she doesn’t.”

A look made the person raise hands in mock-surrender – her eyes were blank and icy, but the man’s were warm, if jaded. “She has no cynicism, and I will keep it that way.”

“Good.” A pause, words kept quiet between the two – they just watched the sunset instead. If the way things were going, it would be her last sunset. “They are beginning with Operation Q.U.E.E.N. soon. She’s been put under to minimise any pain she might feel.”

Cassandra frowned, the movement making her face seem even colder – she was always like this, he thinks; since birth a cold child, nary a smile upon her face, save for when Cruz was around, and even then it was barely there.

“If she dies…” the threat was made silently, but he knew she could follow through with it whenever she felt like it. What was the threat? Death, probably in a fashion that would make that aspiring scientist, Mido, crawl back into the hole he wriggled out of.

“I know, Cassandra.” He gave a wan smile, and to her eyes looked ten years older than he already was, wrinkles coming and going in the blink of an eye. “If she dies, I’d probably help you kill them all.”

Her frown turned neutral, but he could tell she appreciated the sentiment.

“Gregorio…” Her pause was unusual; Cassandra was always just so sure of herself and the words she spoke that it was something rare to see her flounder like this. “…I’m glad you approve.”

“Oh?”

“You’re a good father to her.”

He smiled, sardonically yes but still in a way that gave Cassandra the feeling of pride; as if he was happy she’d said that. He may be a soldier, sure, but so was she, and she knew that every step either of them took could lead to ruin and death. Of themselves. Their loved ones.

They both knew the value of family – granted, in different capacities, but the very fact that Cassandra was happy (he used the term loosely) was something he could appreciate – especially that it was his daughter that brought that happiness.

“You undersell yourself.”

“Gregorio, you shouldn’t be approving of this.”

“And yet I do.”

“…and yet you do, huh?” Her eyes seemed weary, a look he’d seen in the mirror when he had his melancholy days. “I suppose you do.” She looked past his shoulders to the door leading to Cruz’s room; she wasn’t there. 

“Honestly Cassandra-”

“-Cassie.”

“Huh?”

Her face lifted from her perpetual frown to something approaching a smile, and all he could think was ‘Cruz was right; her smiles are so sad’.

“Cruz said my name was too long, and when she found out what my last name meant she didn’t like it – so she shortened my first name to make me sound ‘more approachable’.”

In honesty, he could believe it.

“Said family don’t need long names.” Her eyes drifted from his back over the balcony to look at something only she could see. “So, call me Cassie.”

Silva’s eyes opened momentarily, and for the first time in a while, despite his urge to Frenzy and his soul screaming in pain, he smiled.

That Rutherford boy was at it again. Cassandra would be headed to the Ribcage soon.

He could wait a little longer.

Chapter Text

“It’s so very dark, sometimes.” There was a hint of defeat, broken, porcelain eyes lifting to a twilight sky.

“It is?” A head tilt, squinted eyes and slipping fingers through auburn hair. “As a scientist I can safely say that it’s quite bright, considering.”

Silence, a shuddering sigh.

“Oh. You meant something else.”

“It skitters, shudders, heaves and breathes and I can feel it gnawing at me.”

“…How…how long have you been-”

A red to her black; how fitting that the dark would nibble on her bones and gnaw at her heart. The dark that burns to the touch, that sighs with a voice she knew, that breathes air she’s breathed. It makes her sick. She hates the colour blue now.

“Looking at the dark as it slithers towards me can make me go insane.” A pause, a shuddering breath. “but I will not let it take me.”

A hand on her shoulder, pitying eyes behind glasses.

“I…I can help. You’re going to frenzy if you-”

Red eyes gripped framed blue, a vice grip that wouldn’t relent.

“I will not let it take me.”

A sigh as she walked away, glowing eyes locked with the twilight sky. A frown, tears dripping from her chin.

“I will save her. Then it can take me.”

There’s a dark that watches her and she knows it. It never recedes, it never advances from the corners of her blurring vision. It just sits there and watches. Watches and learns.

Learns her weaknesses, her strengths, learns everything she is and everything she could be. It knows her more than she would know herself. It never seems to grow bored of her, either, and the only time she never sees it is when she sleeps. But of course, Cassie doesn’t sleep anymore because, in all honesty, that ever-present coiling darkness is better than the things she sees when she sleeps.

It’s a writhing mass of nothingness that can only be seen by her, and sometimes the fact that it manifests as something different and unique to each Revenant is disconcerting more than soothing. For what does it say about her that her manifestation of the encroaching Frenzy is nothing? Nothing but smoke and shadows, oily blackness that isn’t really black but her brain can’t think of a colour to give it that suits better.

It’s the same colour as the water she’s treading in right now. Water that can’t even be courteous enough to cover her feet to waist. No, it has to be awkward and go halfway, only up to her kneecaps. Enough to hinder her movement considerably, not enough to make her feel as though that movement actually needed to be hindered in the first place. Honestly, she was already hating this place, but to be fair she might get used to it. After all, no one stays afraid of the dark forever, no one fears spiders their whole lives, no hates knee-deep water for the rest of eternity.

No, never mind that last bit. She hated knee-deep water with a burning passion, and to all gods she could think of said knee-deep water could go fuck itself. Politely of course, she’d never tell something to go fuck itself so crassly. Cassie was her knight, after all, and never had she decided to be so crass before she set foot here.

That probably said something about this area. That it could break her vow on crassness so easily should be commended as an achievement.

A squelch noise interrupted her thoughts – it was with mild intrigue that she’d realised she stopped moving – followed by a rather deep and unnecessarily long sigh. From the corner of her eye she spotted Yakumo, muscled and stood tall, heaving out sighs every once in a while as he squelched through the water that, honestly, bothered her more than she’d like to admit. Actually, now that she thinks on it, where did the water come from? This area seems massive, untamed save for a few areas surrounded by rotted wood and rusted metal. Some little places that looked like islands, sitting there untouched by the water surrounding it, while others seemed to have patches of water darker than the rest.

Spots of water that would inevitably lead to her finding out just how deep the water here could go.

Cassie didn’t release a sigh, no, because she was so beyond caring about this place to even give it the dignity of heaving a sigh from her lips; to be honest this didn’t even count as her most hated place, but there was something exasperating about it, as though it had been hand-crafted to annoy her.

“Didn’t you say there was shadow to every light?”

A hand brushed her hair, face slick with sweat. Blood coating her fingers.

“Something like that, yes. I should have asked you afterwards what that made me.”

A gasp, sad, unaffected by the joy present earlier. Melancholy eyes locked with blue oceans. There were tears. Why were there tears?

“It makes you-”

“Is that…?”

She turned to look at Louis, his eyes locked onto something beyond her vision right now with a sense of confusion; they only came down here because Yakumo insisted they follow up on her hunch. Something was down here, something dangerous and dark that couldn’t be afforded the luxury of ignorance. There was something that rippled inside her when she locked eyes with the sinkhole in the city, something that told her she was doing something right, that going down there would be the end and the beginning of her all at once.

There was that darkness again, whispering things that told her to give up, surrender, let the pain drift away with the dark as she lay there in the inky black grip it offered. She had to ignore it. Day by day her resistance to its siren call was waning, vanishing slowly as her mission progressed.

She needed a distraction.

Louis found one.

Chapter Text

Sorry guys, but this story's gonna be put on hiatus for a while so i can clear my head of the other ideas for different stories and come back to this with a clear head.

I know that's not what anyone wants to hear, but if you look at all my other stories - the one's not abandoned, that is - you'll see i'm churning out ideas at record speeds; records speeds for me, anyway.

The point is this; i'm sorry to disappoint you all but for the foreseeable future until i get my head straight this story will be abandoned - i might come back to it, i might not, it all depends on how things go really. 

sorry once again for any disappointment this has caused, and i promise i'll try to get back to this if i can as soon as possible.